To the west of Clay Hill Road lies the creek you pass over when entering Tivoli. The creek, known as Stoney creek, also was called the White Clay Kill, so maybe Clay Hill was once Clay Kill Road. Whatever the name, one thing is for sure, the land surrounding it is clay. Such a thick and pure clay, you can make pottery with it. My kids use to make little clay balls, dry them hard in the sun and then have a clay ball fight. When Clay Hill Road was paved, ditches were dug for drainage on the sides of the road. This activity exposed tons of clay that the kids were gathering and in which they found objects that we first thought were Indian relics. Beadlike, with a hollow stem, we imagined they were made by Indians for wampam or to decorate their clothing. When no one locally could correctly identify the objects, I mailed a sample to the Museum of Natural History in New York and received a letter back that they were crinoids, marine invertebrates such as the sea lily that at one time had a stalk (the hollow stem). This, the museum personnel that so kindly responded to our inquiry, indicated that the area where they were found was once underwater. Since we are only a little more than a mile from the Hudson River, it most likely was underwater centuries ago. The creek and the river became spots of exploration for the family, the creek because there were so many "bottle dumps" nearby. In the 60's and 70's bottle collecting was quite the hobby and here along the creek we found bottles with the name Madalin (once part of Tivoli), Tivoli and patent numbers and various names and uses, mostly for medical purposes. The river was a place for the family to go fishing. All you needed were some worms, a couple of poles, a big pail to collect eels in, pliars to remove the hooks, and rags to hold the eels when the hook was being removed. The bigger kids would climb in the back of the truck, a fun ride to the river, that today would land a parent in police custody. I would not participate in the fishing, rather I would bring a lawn chair and a book, a few toys for Sabra who was then a toddler to play with. The kids would thow in their lines, catching catfish or just getting caught on remnants of the ferry dock that once existed there. If someone caught an eel, great excitement followed. First, the swearing from their father, the "get me the rag", the anguish as the operation of removing the hook took place, the eel squirming and wiggling, climbing up their father's arm, and finally success and the eel being thrown into a large white pail. The eels were the only fish we took home, and not for us, but for our neighbor Nick Fragano, who said they were delicious. Nick had survived the depression, telling us once that his family use to make spaghetti sauce with sparrows they caught. So we just took it for granted that he would enjoy the eels and he did. He had no fear of contamination, PCB's, even though the river at that time was still being polluted. Pete Seeger had not yet started the campaign that today has made the river so much cleaner. Anyway, the kids would fish, I would look up from my book to make sure things were all right, and Sabra would find a big stick and stir up the eels. She would scream if they started to climb her stirring stick, and her father would warn her that they could climb right out. After a few hours, we would go home, I would advise everyone to wash their hands good after touching the river and the white pail with the eels would go across the street to Nick. I never watched what happened after that, but some one told me that Nick would skin the eels, a sight that I am glad I missed. In 40 years neither the creek nor the river have changed much. There's been talk for several years of a park at the river, but the railroad tracks are right there and that seems to have been a hold up. The creek is still the same, the dam that once existed near the bridge has fallen, but the creekbed is still full of stones when the water is low and brown with the clay when it is full and running fast. When the B&B people call for our address, they often ask "Is Clay Hill one or two words?" Usually I respond "two", but once in a while I will say "one" just for the heck of it.